FSU sure-handed receivers make rare mistakes

TALLAHASSEE — Kenny Shaw’s picture graced the cover of the Florida State Game Time program that was being sold at Doak Campbell Stadium for Saturday night’s contest with Bethune-Cookman.

Underneath the photo of the former Dr. Phillips star were the words “SURE-HANDED SHAW.”

A jinx, perhaps?

Usually FSU’s receiving corps is sure-handed. Shaw, Rashad Green and Kelvin Benjamin are all key targets with whom quarterback Jameis Winston has grown extremely comfortable. For whatever reason against B-CU, however, a case of the dropsies spread like a virus in the early stages of the Seminoles’ 54-6 rout.

Greene started it all in the first quarter when he got away from a B-CU defender and was sprinting underneath a perfect pass from Winston only to drop the ball in the end zone.

It then bit Benjamin in the second quarter as he watched a Winston pass spin through his hands in the corner of the end zone.

Then it was Shaw as halftime neared. He thought he had corralled a pass and was also headed toward six points, but he bobbled the ball, and it fell incomplete.

“We had two dropped touchdowns ... fumbled inside the 5. Those things have got to get cleaned up, and they were by players who usually don’t do those things,” said head coach Jimbo Fisher, who added in running back James Wilder Jr.’s fumble.

Benjamin chalked it up to a lack of focus against a Football Championship Subdivision team.

“Lack of concentration ... probably too relaxed,” Benjamin said of the drops. “Coach Fisher always tells us, ‘Move on. If it’s a good play, move on. It’s a bad play, move on.’ ... So we just forgot about it and tried to move on and get another touchdown in there.”

Benjamin got his later. On his first opportunity, the 6-foot-5, 234-pound tree of a target let a pass that Winston put high in the corner of the end zone slip through this hands.

Given an opportunity one play later, Benjamin worked his way open and was spotted by a scrambling Winston, who got the ball off into Benjamin’s direction. The 11-yard touchdown pass gave FSU a 19-0 second-quarter lead.

“I saw him, and when he looked at me dead in my eyes, that’s how I knew he was going to throw it to me,” Benjamin said.

The Seminoles have obviously been adept at catching Winston’s passes, as is evident by the redshirt freshman’s glossy three-game completion rate of 78 percent (50-of-64).

The drops are obviously something Fisher doesn’t expect to happen, nor does Shaw.

“You’ve got to have a short memory in football,” said Shaw, who finished with four catches for 89 yards. “We got those out of the way, and it’s not going to happen in a big game.”